The 2024 PGA Show in Orlando is close at hand, and SVR will be prowling the exhibits looking for new product offerings that promise change and growth for the golf car-type (GCT) vehicle industry. In addition, SVR will be querying company representatives concerning past year results, market trends, and overtures to new markets.
Parade of upgrades likely to continue
If anything characterizes GCT vehicle trends over the past half-decade, it has been the steady improvement in performance along multiple dimensions. Upgrades once an exotic option have become standard model features. To name a few examples:
- Four-wheel disk brakes;
- Turn signals;
- Powered side mirrors;
- Back-up camera, and
- LED lighting..
Lithium batteries, of course, revolutionized the performance specs and have rapidly come to dominate the new vehicle market.
A plethora of accessories have also come on the market, including Bluetooth, audio systems, LCD dashboard screens, and interior lighting arrays.
Style leadership—plain jane to cool cowl
This is not to say that performance and comfort attributes have been exhausted. Styling and weatherization features, for example, have yet to be fully recognized and exploited. Improvements here could be said to be necessary for an expanded market beyond the culture of golf.
In regards to styling, despite GCT vehicle introductions proclaiming the product to be “new and exciting”, truth be told it looks like a hip golf car and not much more. Now this has its good and not so good aspects. The benefits derived from the easy identity with a well-known, standard product. The traditional look reduces the perception of risk.
On the not so good side, GCT vehicles have less of a chance of breaking into new markets and embracing new venues. The front cowl of the vehicle sets the tone for the rest of body and is the front piece giving rise to performance expectations. Entries into the e-mobility of all sorts have their curb appeal.
One GCT vehicle manufacturer has seen the light in SVR’s view and that is Evolution’s D3 model introduced two years ago and seen here. The company’s website notes that the 2024 version is coming soon and SVR will be looking for it at the Show. Hopefully, the cool cowl will set off a more stylish mid and back component, lending itself to a “new and exciting” introduction that is one, in fact. SVR will be looking for enclosure innovations and weatherizing upgrades that can spring GCT vehicles into all-weather versatility.
SVR’s Golf Car of the Show
This year, SVR will initiate its first annual award for “Golf Car of the Show”. Because of the wide range of optional models that are now on the market, the award will be broken out in two categories: Deluxe top-of-the line GCT vehicle with all the bells and whistles and the economy GCT vehicle aimed at the budget side of the market. The award(s) are due in light of the significant changes in the industry over the past 2-3 years and the potential for much broader markets over the next five. The elements and signs of these broader market developments are indicated in the following.
Getting past near-term uncertainties to long term growth
Currently, there is much nervousness in the market—speaking of LSVs—as it appears supplies are outrunning sales. In its recently published market analysis, SVR predicts the oversupply will melt away as prices drop and new buyers enter the market, but what are the longer term market conditions, 2024 and beyond?
Over the next five years and starting in a major way in 2024, SVR sees significant market growth, as GCT vehicles become new urban mobility vehicles (UMV). This will happen because of continued upgrades, better styling and weatherization—and a growing market sustained by a fundamental transformation of metropolitan areas.
So, what is the evidence for this transformation?
Urban transformation and the opportunities for expanded markets for LSVs
The roots of the evolutionary changes in the GCT vehicle industry include work-from-home, remotely controlled manufacturing (more localized office locations and work-from-home), the revolution in distribution systems, which allow overnight, home-delivery of essentials for work and sustenance, and the rise of the neighborhood cohort of families sharing experiences and lifestyles.
The rise of neighborhood, localized communities is clearly evident from studies of population movement in the United States coming from staff research at the Federal Reserve Banking system, particularly from the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank. Exodus from densely populated urban centers is quite pronounced. The outflow preceded the COVID outbreak, but the pandemic precipitated an even wider, more rapid population movement.
Cities, which demographers and economists suggest, arose as centers of trade and evolved in modern times into commercial centers for all manner of commercial activities and supporting businesses. They became hubs for employment, growth of technology, and systems of commutation. Now, it appears that cities are losing their raison d’etre.
Urban/suburban transition points to more localized transportation systems
Two rapidly emerging realities point to localized transportation well-suited for GCT vehicle solutions:
- The significant decline in mass transportation ridership, has caused Moody’s Investor Services and S & P Global Ratings to downgrade their view of the public transportation sector—specifically the Bay Area Rapid Transportation District (BART), serving San Francisco, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority serving Boston, and the Chicago Transit Authority;
- The impact of new homebuilding is having a positive effect of reducing rents in city centers, according to research conducted by three faculty directors at New York University’s Furman Center. The “chain effect” of new housing supply frees older and less expensive units for other people remaining in urban centers or for newcomers moving in.
Implications of residential change for the GCT vehicle market
Both the changes in living environments—more dispersed regional residential development and the commercial to residential shift in historical urban environments—will see increased patterns of short distance driving and GCT vehicle solutions that make sense and be implemented by consumers and businesses alike.
Thus, the evolution of residential living will underlie the growth and sustainability of an expanded market for GCT vehicles. SVR hopes to see recognition of these possibilities by OEMs in their booths and pavilions at the Orange County Exhibition Center.
About
SVR announces new analysis of the small, task-orient vehicle (STV) market, with outstanding growth potential, and covering:
- Impact of new industry entrants;
- Segment analysis—LSV/PTV, light duty utility vehicles, and fleet;
- Trends from 2016, including the COVID disruption;
- Forecasts by segment and by electric vs. gas to 2030;
- Electrification of the off-road market;
- New market opportunities and benefits of a national dealers’ association
Authored by Stephen Metzger, small vehicle industry expert and longtime contributor to Golf Car Advisor, this new analysis of industry trends is a must-read for developing market strategies and product development. Stephen will be attending the 2024 PGA Show, and if you would like to talk to him there, or find out more about the SVR market analysis, you can contact him at smetzger@smallvehicleresource.com
